North Moluccan Malay
language
North Moluccan Malay (also known as Ternate Malay) is a Malay-based creole language spoken on Ternate, Tidore, Morotai, Halmahera, and Sula Islands in North Maluku for intergroup communications. The local name of the language is bahasa Pasar (literally 'market language'), and the name Ternate Malay is also used, after the main ethnic group speaking the language. It is commonly written using Indonesian orthography. One of its varieties is Sula Malay, which was formed with the influence of Ambonese Malay.
A large percentage of this language's lexicon has been borrowed from Ternatean, such as, ngana 'you (sg.)', ngoni 'you (pl.)', bifi 'ant', and fuma 'stupid', and its syntax and semantics have received heavy influence from the surrounding West Papuan languages. Other vernacular forms of Malay spoken in eastern Indonesia, such as Manado Malay and Papuan Malay, are said to be derived from an earlier form of North Moluccan Malay.
Phonology
Vowels
The vowel system of North Moluccan Malay consists of five vowel phonemes and five diphthongs.
The five diphthongs are /ai/, /ae/, /ao/, /oi/ and /ei/.
Consonants
North Moluccan Malay has eighteen consonants and two semivowels.
Grammar
Possession
In Ternate Malay, words do not align its forms with its grammatical roles; therefore, the functions of words are often determined by linguistic context and non-linguistic situation.
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This entry incorporates text from “North Moluccan Malay” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.